Challenges

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Monday, May 24, 2010

When Anna Traverne, discovers a housebreaker her world is turned upside down. She's a widow staying with her brother in law and his wife, only he wants to make her his mistress in exchange for a roof over her head.

Thankfully the housebreaker leaves her with the emeralds he was stealing and she manages to make her way to Ceylon. A few months later, her housebreaker finds her, intent on getting the emeralds back and getting Anna in his bed.

This book just didn't click with me. There were just too many things that didn't sit write with me and made this book a bit too hard to finish. First, the housebreaker, Julian Chase. I can understand his jealousy of his half-brothers but he seems to take it a bit too far. I can perhaps understand hating Graham, because he wasn't exactly the nicest guy, but Paul is dead, and he never did anything to hurt anyone.

Anna is another confounding character. There's no explanation for why she took the charity of her brother-in-law after her husband's death. Though it is safe to assume that it was a result of too much debt on the plantation her husband had in Ceylon. Plus, why does she call her daughter, Chelsea, chicken? It makes no sense at all.

There's a lot about this story that bugged me, particularly at the end. How does Julian claim his title when he was supposedly hanged for theft? Plus, how is it that Julian found Anna so quickly but Graham took so much longer? One would think that her abrupt departure, when she was without funds would make her an obvious suspect, when it came to the theft of the emeralds.

I won't even begin with my feelings on the sex scenes, because I think the two characters should have spent a little more time out of bed then doing it might have made the story a bit easier to handle.

This book wasn't 100% awful, but there was very little to recommend it.